by Elizabeth Weise, USATODAY

by Elizabeth Weise, USATODAY

Those whose memories extend back further will remember Kasell as the anchor of NPRs Morning Edition.

I never met the man. But to this day, hearing his unmistakable deep voice takes me back to an empty newsroom in the middle of the night and the day I became a real reporter.

I'd been an intern at KUOW, Seattle's NPR affiliate, for seven months when I pitched my first story to NPR.

It was about the Omak Stampede in eastern Washington, sometimes called the Suicide Race. In it, horses and their riders run down the 62-degree slope of Suicide Hill into the Okanogan River.

Several horses had been injured the year before, so animal rights groups were calling for the race to be cancelled.

The network agreed to buy the story for the princely sum of $25.

I still have a Xerox of the check.

It took hours at an editing station, recording and rerecording the 55-second story, to get it up to network quality. Finally, at 1:00 a.m., our sound engineer helped me upload it to the network via the satellite uplink.

At that point I could have gone home. But in an hour, Morning Edition would start broadcasting live on the East Coast.

In Seattle, we wouldn't begin running the show until 5:00 a.m. local time. But around 2:20 my time, Kasell would introduce the story. For the first time I'd be a real, paid, reporter.

I couldn't leave.

Ken Vincent, the morning host, took pity on me. He set the live feed to play in the newsroom, so I wouldn't have to sit with headphones on in the uplink closet.

The clock ticked, the night wore on. Finally, at 2:00 a.m., the jaunty theme music of Morning Edition filled the newsroom.

I couldn't tell you what other news happened that day. But at about 20 minutes after the hour, Kasell's resonant voice said the words I'd been waiting to hear for what seemed like years.

"Reporting from Seattle, Elizabeth Weise has the story."

I've done a lot of stories since, interviewed a lot of people and had my voice and face in a lot of places. But to this day, those eight words, spoken in his definitive tones, are among the most thrilling I've heard in my life.